Cynthia was actually dead easy to take down the first time I played Pearl, which was the first pokemon game I ever played. Lance was harder for me as my team also had a few dragons and that Dragonite kept killing both of mine, mainly because my Dragonite's dragon rush kept missing and his Dragonite was too bulky for me to OHKO with my Kingdra. But I beat him after a few attempts. When I went back and played 1st gen, Blue was dead easy, 3rd gen (played Emerald), Wallace was also dead easy.